Jaifol Liun, 52, made the plea after the charge was read to him before Sessions Court judge Awang Krisnada Awang Mahmud in Sabah’s Tawau east coast district.

The charge was framed under Section 40 of the Wildlife Enactment Act 1997 and punishable under Section 40(3) of the same enactment, which provides for a maximum jail term of two years or a maximum RM50,000 fine, or both, on conviction.

Jaifol, from Penampang, is accused of failing to hand over the tusks belonging to a protected species to officers from the Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) at the plantation manager’s house in Kampung Felda Umas at 2am on Oct 2.

Syarifuddin Abdul Rasa, the SWD deputy public prosecutor, applied for bail of RM10,000 in two sureties to be imposed on Jaifol.

But Awang set bail at RM7,000 in two sureties after Jaifol’s counsel, Mohamed Zairi Zainal Abidin, asked for leniency as his client had been suspended from work until the case was completed.

The judge ordered Jaifol’s passport to be surrendered and set Dec 11 for re-mention of the case. Jaifol is also required to report to the Tawau SWD office once in two weeks.

Meanwhile, Syarifuddin also applied for a court order for three others — Paranchoi Nordin, 58, Abdullah Simin, 68, and Martin Alok, 44 — to appear in court for the same case this Friday.

Paranchoi and Abdullah were sentenced to two years’ imprisonment under Section 8 of the Firearms Act 1960 last Oct 22 while Martin was jailed two months and ordered caned two times under Section 6(1)(c) of the Immigration Act 1959/1963 on Oct 15.

Police had on Oct 2 arrested six men, including two plantation guards, in connection with the killing of a bull pygmy elephant.

The animal’s carcass, which was riddled with bullets, was found by anglers in a river and tied to a tree at Sungai Udin, Dumpas, in Kalabakan, near Tawau, on Sept 25.